David Goldstein - European Commission Consults On .EU Rules

17.05.2017

The European Commission has opened a consultation on future rules for .eu, asking if the current rules are still fit for purpose, or if they need to changed or updated.

.eu is the "online digital brand" of the European Union that commenced registrations on 7 April 2006. At the end of March 2017, .eu was the 7th largest ccTLD with over 3.7 million registrations to organisations and individuals resident in EU Member States as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Since .eu became available, many things have changed in the domain name market, which is now much more dynamic and competitive. Therefore the existing rules on .eu need to be evaluated to assess whether they are still fit-for-purpose.

The public consultation is open from 12 May until 8 August 2017. Business representatives, those working in the public sector, academia and all those with an interest are invited to provide input and help determine the future of .eu.

In other .eu news, EURid announced the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center will be added as an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider for disputes involving .eu and .ею domain names, hearing cases in all 24 official EU languages, as of 1 June 2017. WIPO will join the Czech Arbitration Court, becoming the second dispute resolution provider for .eu and .ею.